The present invention generally relates to computer-aided knowledge systems and, more particularly, to computer-aided information and knowledge systems for commercial and military vehicles, such as aircraft, tanks, and other ground vehicles.
The air-worthiness of a vast number of aircraft and other vehicles is dependent upon many inter-dependent subsystems. Often, when any one of many critical components fails or requires repair, service is disrupted because the entire aircraft or several major systems must be removed from service. Service disruption results in delays, cancellations and significant cost for airline operators, as well as passenger inconvenience. Traditionally, service disruptions are prevented or reduced by large parts inventories and by premature replacement of systems, subsystems and component parts. These remedies are sub-optimum because inventories consume capital and risk obsolescence, and because premature maintenance and component replacement under-utilizes the assets.
There is an increasing need for automated troubleshooting systems, which has prompted many companies to turn to application software to deploy and manage their troubleshooting applications effectively. Quite commonly, these applications are configured to interface with a tested unit in real time, in order to explore, evaluate and implement a corrective action as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, presently there is no existing computer-aided information and knowledge system that allows users to retrieve the internal information from the unit under test in order to facilitate troubleshooting of the malfunctioning unit, which is also capable of downloading the information and goals and providing recommendation for decision making about the tested unit. Thus, the user is forced to turn to a slow, manual downloading and off-line analysis, which are complex and cumbersome alternatives, to gain access to needed data sources, and makes the decision himself. Often, the alternatives are very costly and time-consuming to implement, require a more sophisticated set of skills, and may consume additional human and machine resources to execute.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and a software system which can reduce the delays, cancellation, and inventories that must be carried to ensure parts availability, in order to better manage the maintenance and repair of aircraft systems, subsystems, and components.